


Catharsis

by OrionRedde, Shyrstyne



Series: Cometverse [73]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Injury, Lilo and Stitch - Freeform, Misgendering, misgendering of a nonbinary character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25983187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrionRedde/pseuds/OrionRedde, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shyrstyne/pseuds/Shyrstyne
Summary: two arcs come to a close
Series: Cometverse [73]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1285373
Comments: 15
Kudos: 20





	1. That's Enough

Van is tired.

That’s the first thing that comes to his mind as he looks across the badlands at his double, the one who never had a Comet, who seems content to just… stay angry. Van is tired of fighting this guy, tired of his insults, tired of trying to be decent and get the guy on a better path. Van is  _ tired.  _

And he’s so  _ fucking  _ **_angry._ **

Van clenches his fist, tuning out his double’s latest diatribe. You don’t deserve this, you’re nothing but darkness, one day they’ll see how  _ horrible  _ and  _ awful  _ you are, blah, blah, blah, blah,  _ blah.  _ The other Vanitas is just saying what Van himself has been thinking for  _ ages,  _ and he has  _ long  _ since learned that the tiny, hissing voice in the back of his skull is a  _ liar.  _

Van  _ hates  _ liars.

“Hey!” He shouts, interrupting his double’s monologue. “Are you done projecting on me yet? You’re gonna make me late to dinner.”

“Ex _ cuse me?!”  _ Other Vanitas hisses, tiny teeth bared.

Cute.

“Did I fucking stutter?” Van cracks. “Are. You. Done. Projecting. On. Me? You seem pretty adamant that I don’t deserve what I’ve got. I got news for you, shitwit - I don’t. I know I don’t. But they gave it to me anyway, freely and without any strings attached.”

“There are  _ always-” _

_ “Stars above,  _ dude, do you have  _ anything new  _ to say?! ‘They’ll betray you, you’re garbage, you’re nothing, you’re awful!’ Oh,  _ boo fucking hoo!”  _ Van snaps, throwing his arms out. “What are you, twelve?! I’ve lost count on how many times you’ve pulled this shit. Fucking dragging me out here to try to, what, convince me to join you? To go back to being a dead man’s slave?” Van spits on the dirt in front of him. “Did that, hated it, didn’t even get a t-shirt. Now, if you’ll  _ excuse  _ me, I’m gonna go home.”

Van turns, but keeps his ears pricked. 

There’s an angry roar, a burst of wind.

Van whips around and grabs Vanitas’ keyblade. He takes a brief moment to savor the surprise on his double’s face before winding up and throwing the smaller Vanitas away. Vanitas bounces twice before rolling to his feet.

“You haven’t even changed up your tactics,” Van tuts, crossing his arms. “Sad.”

_ “Fuck you!”  _ Vanitas snarls, scrambling to his feet.

“Not interested,” Van cracks, shifting his weight as he takes his stance. “So are you going to do something new or keep swinging your keyblade around and hope for the best?”

“I’ll kill you!” Vanitas roars as he leaps at Van again, swinging his keyblade around in an overhead arc. Van grabs the keyblade, diverts it to one side, and drives a fist into his double’s middle. Vanitas is thrown back, keyblade slipping from his grip. Van tosses the weapon aside and approaches his fallen double, stopping just outside of swiping range.

“Can you even fight without your keyblade?” He muses aloud. “I don’t remember the old goatfuck teaching me anything about hand-to-hand combat.”

“I know enough,” Vanitas snarls, getting to his feet.

“Fight me, then!” Van taunts, hopping in place. “Show me what you got.”

Vanitas launches himself at Van, lashing out to punch at his face. Van catches it with his forearm, loops his own arm around it, and tugs Vanitas forward as he jabs his elbow at Vanitas’ face in turn. Vanitas drops, bringing a leg up to kick Van in the chin. Van releases Vanitas, taking a step back as Vanitas flips away.

“So you  _ can  _ fight,” Van drawls as he dashes forward to try to kick Vanitas’ block off. He’s blocked by a forearm, but he manages to send Vanitas skidding back. “At least you have that going for you.”

“Shut your mouth!” Vanitas snaps at him, once again launching at Van, attempting to land an uppercut. Van blocks it and rewards Vanitas with a knee to the ribs.

“I’d say ‘make me,’ but I doubt you could,” Van huffs. 

Vanitas screams wordlessly and lashes out again. 

It goes on like this for a while. Vanitas will do his probable best to get his hands on Van, and Van will block, or deflect, or dodge, and reward Vanitas’ persistence with another blow. Van won’t lie: it’s sad, watching this other him try to bring him down. He doesn’t know how to grapple (though he tries), he doesn’t know how to deflect (he doesn’t try for that one), he doesn’t know the best way to use an opponent’s momentum against them (Van doubts he’s even heard of such a thing). This Vanitas just… doesn’t know how to fight with his hands. Nobody ever taught him. This Vanitas is still stuck in a shadow.

“Quit dodging me like a coward and  _ fight me!”  _ Vanitas roars. “Did your  _ mommy  _ teach you this garbage? I bet  _ she’s  _ a coward t-” His words are cut off by a blazing fist to the face. His head snaps back, a trail of blood flying through the air. Van,  _ enraged how dare this fucking  _ **_clod_ ** _ call his ren a  _ **_coward_ ** _ , _ punches him again, again,  _ again,  _ ending the combo by joining his hands together and swinging them up to slam into Vanitas’ chin. The other flies back, Van running to follow him and volleyball spike him back into the air. He still follows, but let’s Vanitas land on the ground. He stomps up, viscous smoke/darkness pouring from his mouth as lava oozes and forms rocks and drips magma from his clenched fists.

Vanitas groans and tries to sit up on his elbows but Van is on him and he brings back a fist, his very  _ being  _ glowing with rage as he strikes  _ down-! _

…

……

………

Vanitas cracks an eye open, looking slightly to his left. He smells the burnt dirt and sees the smoke. His double stands over him, panting, streams of lava reminiscent to Vanitas’ dark armor oozing over Van’s skin, gathering into hot rock and dripping magma over his fists. A mixture of thick smoke and pure darkness leaks from the corners of his doubles glowing mouth as he pants.

Why isn’t he dead?

_ Why hasn’t Van finished him off? _

“What’re you doing?!” Vanitas rasps.  _ “Finish it!” _

Van focuses on him, yellow eyes tinged with the red of magma and brimstone.

“No,” he murmurs, magic and smoke and fire fading. “No, I don’t think I will.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?!” Vanitas howls, clawing at the dirt and ignoring the pain every breath brings. “ _ Quit being a coward and FINISH ME!!” _

“I’m Vanitas,” the other him says simply. “And I’m going to go home now. I'm going to go home to people who love me, who want me in their lives, who miss me when I leave and welcome me when I get home. I'm going to go home and know I don't need anybody else to make me whole. I have no master but myself, but I do have people to fall back on when I can't hold myself up. What do you have?”

A hi-potion lands on the silent Vanitas’ chest.

“Take this. Get the fuck out of here. Leave me and mine alone. I’m tired of entertaining somebody who refuses to grow up,” Van continues, stepping away from his downed double. 

And he walks away, ignoring the sound of Vanitas dissolving into angry hysterics behind him.

Van goes home. He goes home and he greets everybody he sees with a tight hug, burying his face into shoulders and chests and taking in their scent. He clutches Comet the tightest, memorizing his Ren’s scent all over again. They dig fingers into his scalp and hold him back just as tightly.

They don’t say anything. They don’t need to.

“Love you, Ren,” he mumbles into their shoulder.

“Love you, too, cub,” they hum back, kissing his forehead. “I’m proud of you.”

Van basks in the warmth of his family, his pack, and lets himself fall asleep, head resting on his Ren’s shoulder.

All is well.


	2. Scenic Route

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canon!Van is left to figure it out himself. Somehow, he manages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing from vanitas' pov is honestly so interesting because he is the *biggest* unreliable narrator ever. his actions and his thoughts and what he actually wants are often all in three completely different directions.

Vanitas doesn’t take the hi-potion. 

He sits up, holds the bottle for ten seconds, and then flings the thing as far as he can. He listens to it shatter with a primal sort of pleasure. He doesn’t need this _pity_. He hates that he’s sunk so low even _he_ pities him. 

His breath rattles in his chest. He doesn’t bother cataloguing his injuries. He can’t move one arm and it hurts to breathe. Everything else is irrelevant. He ignores the bruises and gashes and sinks into the dark. 

He slinks through the dark corners of Radiant Garden; there are many, especially around the castle despite its name. He holes up on some piping along the ceiling and watches the scientists as they work. He gets lucky, they’re doing tests or something, which means opening and closing the portal repeatedly. He doesn’t care, he just needs to get away. He sneers under the shattered glass of his mask as he listens to them trade equations back and forth. 

The portal opens again, and this time he steps out of the darkness, dropping to the grated floor below. 

He can’t dash through unnoticed like he did before, so he settles for slow intimidation as he walks towards it. He shoves Ienzo out of the way, pretends the man's life is below him and it’s not because he can’t physically manage anything more than that. 

Darkness swarms before him, and Demyx materializes in front of him, snarling. 

“You won’t get another second chance if you touch him again, buddy.” Demyx's voice is low. Vanitas is not unsettled by the dozens of eyes focused squarely on him. Second chance. Ha. How many of those was he on now? He scoffs, and turns back toward the portal. He can hear Ienzo warn his double on the other side. 

It doesn’t matter, he steps through the portal and immediately sinks into the darkness, teleporting away. 

Teleporting without a destination isn’t smart, but Vanitas is beyond caring. He wants to get away. Away from the pity, away from the eyes, away from _himself_. He can feel Unversed roiling within him, but he keeps them under leash, more to prove to himself that he still has _control,_ dammit than for any other reason.

He stumbles out of the dark and nearly face plants into a tree, sand slipping under his feet. He leans against the bark, takes a deep breath, and shoves his shoulder into it. He bites back a howl, and then another one when he realizes it didn’t work. It takes him three more tries to set his arm back into its socket. 

He hears the rustle of foliage. He’d thought he was alone, and his first reaction is to summon his Keyblade. It shakes pathetically in his grasp. 

There’s a girl sitting on a log with her arms crossed. She peers up at him, with almost no reaction to his weapon at all. He snarls. 

“Get out of here brat.”

“You’re not a tourist, are you?”

He laughs bitterly. He barely knows what a tourist is, other than that he certainly isn’t one. 

“That’s a pretty weird sword. You look pretty messed up, are you okay?” She asks frankly. 

“I could still mess _you_ up.” He spits back. He’s threatening a _two year old_. It was so beneath him it hurt, and yet here he was. 

“I doubt that.” The kid says, and sounds absolutely sure of it too. She stands, extends a hand to him. “My name’s Lilo. What’s yours?”

“None of your business.” What is he doing? He turns to leave. He ignores how much it still hurts to move.

“You know, people would probably like you more if you weren’t such a grump.”

“I am the Darkness. _I don’t need people to like me_!” He whips around, blade raised in anger, but faster than he can move there is suddenly a small blue creature in front of her, gowling threateningly.

He recognises it.

“You- You! You were with the Guardians, you vile little-” He makes a hard swipe with his keyblade, which the creature catches with four clawed hands. It quirks its head at him.

“...?” It’s ears pop up. “Sora! Fight you!”

“Stitch, you know this guy?” Lilo asks. She seems totally unperturbed that he’s got a weapon pointed at the both of them. Stitch makes a so-so gesture with one hand, the other three still wrapped around Vanitas’ keyblade.

Vanitas notices the chains around the shaft look cracked. He ignores it. After everything, what would be one more indignity if his own keyblade were to fall apart too?

“Fought with Friend-Ven! Sora!” Stitch confirms with a nod.

Vanitas wrenches his keyblade away. He can’t get away from it, can he? Even out in the middle of nowhere space, he was still running into the light crew’s possé.

“Another one of Ventus’ little lackey’s. Pathetic. Just like him I guess.”

“Hey! Naga bootifa!” Stitch points a finger at him angrily.

“What? Jumping to his defence like everyone else? Don’t bother, he doesn’t care about you, I bet he barely even remembers you.” 

The little blue alien snarls and snaps at him, held back only by Lilo’s hand on one arm.

“Hey!” She calls. “You don’t have to be mean!”

“What can I say, it’s just my nature.” He’s wasted long enough here. Enough time on Ventus’ _scraps._

“Stupidhead.” He hears the girl mutter. “Ven _better_.” Stitch adds.

Vanitas has turned and swung at them before he can really think about what he’s doing. Stitch grabs the blade at the head and _lifts_ , turning his momentum against him, flipping him over and slamming him into the ground. He feels something crunch sharply in his chest. 

All the air has left him, and suddenly he feels like he’s breathing water.

“Did you just kill him?” The girl sounds equal parts morbidly curious and doubtful. His arm’s come out of his socket again, but it ranks low on his priorities. “Naga takabah!” He hears the thing say. He tries to take a breath. It’s not enough. He can’t get enough air in his lungs.

“He looks dead…” 

“Ihhhhhhh..” He coughs, spitting blood onto the grass. He hears the girl make loud ‘ew’ noise.

“Stitch, go get Nani. She can get Cousin Margaret from the hospital.”

“Ih!” There’s a rustle as the creature scampers off.

If Vanitas were to die here, at the feet of a small child… well it would serve him right, wouldn’t it? A glorious irony, born at the feet of an old man, dying at the feet of a child. She crouches next to his face. He coughs again, gasping.

“Go… Aw _ay_ ….”

She tilts her head at him, and then just looks sad.

“You push people away, don’t you?” She says more than asks. He’s in too much pain to be angry that she’s right. “It’s okay. I used to do that too. So did Stitch. You don’t have to though, you could have friends too.”

“The darkness… doesn’t need….. _Friends_..” It doesn’t matter how much he might long for it. He _doesn’t need them_. He’s going to spit blood all over her cute little dress just to spite her, if only he could lift his head more than an inch. Every bone in his body hurts. He wonders if he’s broken more than just a few ribs. Even the Unversed are beyond him now, everything in him swirling through his body just trying to keep him alive.

She adjusts herself to sit more comfortably, crossing her legs as she considers this.

It’s quiet. He squeezes his eyes shut as he wills his body to just _move_ -

“I don’t like the rain.” He doesn’t know why she’s talking about this. He feels lightheaded and nauseous. 

“So?” The word comes out as a wheeze.

“I don’t like it, but it has to rain. Or all the plants will die and the ocean will dry up.” He thinks she has a very simple concept of rain. “So the rain isn’t bad, even though I don’t like it.”

“What.. is your… _point_.” He feels like he’s drowning.

“Just because you’re a Vampire or whatever doesn’t mean you can’t have friends, or do things. That’s dumb. Everyone needs friends.” She tilts her head so it’s parallel to his, looking him in the eyes.

_“I have people waiting for me. What do you have?”_

He doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or cry. He doesn’t have the air for either though, and let’s oblivion take him instead.

\----

He wakes on a bed.

Everything still hurts, but less than it did before. He no longer feels like he’s drowning at least. He opens his eyes, and there’s a thing standing over him that reminds him only vaguely of Stitch. It beams in what can only be a sharp toothed grin, and scuttles off to the side where he now sees Stitch sitting on a shelf nearby.

It jibbers something at him, and he nods.

“Okie taka, cousin.” The second one beams again, and then scuttles off, this time out the door and out of sight.

The room is small, and while the knicknacks have all been moved off to the sides, it’s pretty obviously someone's bedroom. Stitch is looking at him. He’s holding some bit of junk that looks vaguely like a star.

“Margaret says you shouldn’t move. Hurt bad.”

His first instinct is to try and sit up.

“Don’t tell me what to do, animal.”

Stitch snorts dismissively, like he’s heard it before and isn’t impressed.

“What do you want with me?” His chest hurts. He pretends it’s only his ribs again. 

Stitch holds out the ugly junk star. “Ven, friend.”

“So you help his enemy?” He sneers. He wants to get away from here so badly. Stitch shakes his head. 

“Wanna help. Not be enemies any more.” Vanitas barks a laugh. Doesn’t _that_ sound familiar. 

“What? You think it’s that easy? That you’ll do one nice thing for me and it’ll all be rainbows and gumdrops from there? Well I have news for you, _monster,_ it’s not that easy and I’m not that nice.”

Stitch holds the star in four tiny but sharp claws. “Ven.. friend.” He says again. “Would want to help.”

Vanitas surges up, rage and loneliness and betrayal boiling in his chest strong enough he’s surprised he isn’t spitting up more unversed even as he moves, ignoring the sharpness in his ribs at the motion. He doesn’t know what he intended to do, but he’s stalled by his own body before he can complete it. 

He laughs. It’s a hard and bitter sound.

“You don’t know him very well do you? Because he _wouldn’t._ He’s left me behind and forgotten me just like _everyone else.”_

Stitch just looks sad. Vanitas hates it. He doesn’t want the little monsters pity. 

“Ohana.” He says. Vanitas just glared at him. Another voice speaks. 

“Ohana means family.” It’s the little girl again, Lilo. She must have entered the room at some point but he doesn’t know when. He hates that she’s just slipped under his radar like that. 

“Family means nobody gets left behind.” She continues, and climbs up onto the foot of the bed. 

“Or forgotten.” Stitch finishes. 

Vanitas hates this. He _hates_ it. He needs to get out, get away. 

“He did.” Escapes his throat instead. 

“You could be part of ours instead.” She looks at him with childish sincerity. He doesn’t understand it. 

“No. Leave me alone.” He lets his head flop back onto the pillow. He’s so tired. Everything hurts, but what else is new? He doesn’t see Lilo exchange a look with Stitch. He does hear them both leave the room though. 

Against his will, he finds himself drifting off to sleep. 

—-

He hears giggling in the distance. He can feel the darkness pooling around him again, which means he’s well enough it’s doing more than just keeping him alive now. There’s a sigh above him, and his eyes still feel heavy but he opens them anyway. 

There’s a woman sitting on the edge of his bed, and she can only be related to Lilo. She’s holding the jawline of his mask, inspecting it. 

“First it was the ‘dog’, then it was some aliens, then it was all the cousins, and then it was _more_ aliens.. and now an insane Japanese cosplayer.” She looks down at him with a wry grin. 

“It's a good thing Mr. Bubbles has us covered because I don’t think the government would appreciate me trying to claim you all on my taxes.”

He says nothing. There’s a childish shriek down the hall. 

“Nurse Stitch! I need 20cc’s of juice, stat!”

“Ih!”

The girl has a fond smile on her face, having looked up at the source of the noise. He scowls at the sight of it.

“They’re a handful, but it’s a good sort of handful. How are you holding up? Lilo tried to tell me what happened, but sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s her imagination and what’s a new universe ending space alien that’s actually ended up under our roof.”

He almost tells her, just so she would know how easily he could end her entire pathetic existence. He doesn’t know what stops him. He sits up instead, sliding off the bed. He’s wearing simple pants and an obviously borrowed T-shirt, but he doesn’t want to stay to hunt down his things. He doesn’t even grab his mask. He can always make new ones. 

“Woah, hey now you shouldn’t-“

He steps through the portal without a word. 

Nani is left staring wide eyed as the swirling portal vanishes. The mask piece falls from suddenly nerveless fingers. 

“Liloooooo!”

—-

He comes back. 

Not right away, he waits long after his body has healed in its entirety, and even then he violently rejects the thought when it surfaces... but he can’t stop it from surfacing entirely. His thoughts keep getting drawn back to the weird little girl and her alien. 

_“Or forgotten.”_

He watches the house, sees the older girl do her chores and go to work, planting kisses on both Lilo and Stitch’s heads as she leaves. He watches the other two aliens meander about the place. He watches Lilo and Stitch play in the driveway. 

Stitch catches sight of him. Vanitas vanishes into the underbrush. 

He wanders the island. Sometimes he runs into more of the little monsters, what can only be the ‘cousins’ he keeps hearing about. He avoids them if he can, mostly because he doesn’t want to be bothered more than any other reason, but a couple he ends up fighting anyway. 

The battles don’t exhilarate him the way it used to. The way it should. His head is too full. His heart hurts the same way it always does.

He finds a tall outcrop, overlooking the ocean. It reminds him of doing the same thing over the badlands, and yet the experience is the opposite in every way. The ocean crashes far below, deceptively calm in the distance, belying an uncaring power beneath it. 

He.. likes it. 

The sun sets over the horizon. 

“Stitch.. hurt once too.” The voice comes from behind him. He hunches in on himself. His mask isn’t on. He wishes it was. 

“Go away.”

“Had help. Got better. You could..” The blue thing doesn’t know when to quit. 

“I don’t _want_ to ‘get better’.” He says, but there’s no real heat in it any more. He just wants to watch the ocean right now. 

There’s a pause, and then he hears it leave. 

_“Are you done projecting on me yet?”_

He doesn’t want it, he tells himself. He doesn’t. 

He hangs around the island. He hasn’t got anywhere else to be really. 

This portion of the beach is empty for the most part, he wanders down it without any true goal in mind. He wonders what the sand would feel like between his toes. He doesn’t dare take off his armour to try. 

There’s delighted shouting and laughter around the next copse of trees.

“Up high, Nani!”

“I got it!”

The voices are familiar. He approaches silently. Sure enough it’s Lilo, her sister(?) and the blue thing, plus another man he doesn’t recognise. They’re playing some ~~game~~ training exercise involving a ball and a net in the sand. He stays in the shadows. 

Stitch notices him anyways. He tugs on Lilo’s arm and points him out. Vanitas is halfway through opening a portal to escape when the girl grabs his hand.

“Do you wanna play with us?”

He doesn’t. He doesn’t want to be anywhere near them.

“I don’t know how.”

Her smile is bright and excited.

“We can teach you!” She tugs on his hand insistently. He’s still in his armour, they’re all in beach wear. He suddenly feels very out of place.

He pulls his hand away.

She looks hurt for half a second.

He doesn’t care. He _doesn’t._

“Not.. right now.”

She nods.

“Okay. Next time!” He doesn’t know how she sounds so sure that there will be a next time. She starts to jog back towards the others, and he wastes half a second staring after them. She pauses, and then turns back.

“You can still stay and watch though, if you want!”

He considers it, and then nods.

He can do that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we all need a little help sometimes, but it can't actually, well, *help* unless we're ready to allow it to. we're leaving canon!van here, but honestly? his journey's only just begun. don't worry though, he'll make it. it just takes some time and some determination to get there.


End file.
